A Celtic Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,24

rain had blown in quickly - and it hadn't taken much to convince Moira to sit out the bluster in the inn's parlor.

Guests were particularly cherished on an inhospitable winter's eve.

Cass looked over from her perch on the window seat. "I like the storms. They remind me of home."

"Ah, and where'd you grow up, then?" Moira set down the tea tray, ready for a good Irish conversation - the kind that lasted for hours and went nowhere in particular and everywhere important.

"County Galway. Mum and Da are still there. My sister Bri's in Dublin, and Rory flits around depending on his mood. He has a lot of them."

Moira thought of Marcus and chuckled. There was always a moody one somewhere in the family tree. "Do you go back to see them often?"

"When I can." Cass turned, finally noticing the tea. She unraveled from her neat ball on the low bench and glanced back out the window one last time. "When I'm on this coast, I always like to go to the beach and imagine them standing there waving, just beyond the horizon."

For fifty years and more, Moira had done exactly the same thing. "Will you ever move back?"

"No." The answer came swiftly, and with sadness. "I left because times were tough and musicians a dime a dozen. And grew up into someone else while I traveled the world. When I go back, it feels like the home of my childhood."

But not the home of the woman grown. That, too, Moira could understand. "So where is home now?"

"I don't know." Cass seemed surprised by her words - or perhaps only surprised that she'd spoken. "I have an apartment in New York, but I hardly ever see it."

Ah. A plant without roots, then. Moira sipped her tea and watched their guest stir in milk and sugar. Very interesting indeed. "And what brought you to our little corner of the world?" Fisher's Cove in March was about the furthest thing possible from a tourist destination.

"Dave in Margaree recommended it."

That much had already been traveled through the grapevine. It was the layers underneath that interested Moira now. "It's not a common time of year to be visiting Cape Breton, either."

Green eyes looked up from tea making. "No, it's not."

The invitation to talk had been issued - and anyone who'd grown up in Ireland would know that. Moira contented herself with her own cup and waited.

"It's the quiet months for fiddlers." Cass shrugged. "I take a couple of weeks in the summer to go back home, too, but this is the time I take just for me. I don't mind the weather."

It was so lovely to hear the song of home in someone else's voice, muted by years abroad though it was. "Make a living with your music, do you?"

"Mostly." The visitor's smile seemed laden with words unsaid.

"It's a good occupation for a wanderer."

"My nan calls me that." Cass's head tipped to the side. "She's the one who put a violin in my hands, too."

A grandmother after Moira's own heart. "She sounds like an interesting woman."

"In another time, she'd have been a warrior priestess, I think." Cass grinned. "Or a bard."

"A singer, is she?"

"Aye. Says she turned me to the fiddle to cover up the creaks as her voice grew old." Their visitor settled back into the couch, love for an old Irish gran shining in her eyes. "She can still stop a pub dead in its tracks with just a few notes."

In Ireland, there was no larger compliment. "It's a great gift she gave you, then. A love for music and a way to make your own."

Green eyes sharpened. "You see very clearly for someone I've just met. Nan would like you."

It was time to press a little deeper. "Is she the one who taught you of power and magic as well, then?"

Blank shock hit Cass's face, followed quickly by intrigue and a heaping dose of curiosity. "You're a witch?"

Moira nodded and sipped her tea. "A bit of one." Time to see how well the girl knew her lore. "I'm a Doonan. My gran was a Gaughran."

"My nan is a Cassidy," said her namesake quietly.

Ah. The healer clan. The girl wasn't only named for her hair, then. Life was such a gorgeous tapestry sometimes. Moira smiled at the woman who was the latest bright gold thread in the weaving. "And is it her talent you carry in your veins?"

"No." Cass shook her head slowly. "Not the healing, anyhow. I hear the rocks a bit,